Believe
by PixieXW
Summary: People say the belief's of a child are the strongest, but I never really believed that to be true. It has been eight years since Susan Pevensie lost her entire family in a train accident, she's suffered in ways she could never have imagined and her belief in her other life has slid away but with the help of something small she learns once more to believe.
1. Chapter 1

There is, or so I believe, no such thing as a parent who isn't an over protective one but- having lost my entire family in a rail accident when I was twenty-one-years-old, I believe I may have left protective far behind. I've got a daughter, my only way out of the horrors of the human mind. Being Lucy's only parent I know there was better for her. She could have had my own childhood. She could have run and played in a world so surreal and magical, but she is stuck. Just as I am stuck.

I see the clinical room, pristine to the point an innocent and pure baby would be too dirty for it. Rows and rows of tables, haunted by white sheets were there before my eyes. The victims of the train crash at a distant station, I didn't belong in that village no one knew me, no one cared. Doctors and nurses with an army of volunteers were bustling around taking people's names and helping them find the correct body. A large woman, who was easily over six-foot tall with arms like a soldier, came charging towards me. She grunted and pulled at a label around my neck. The label first read Susan Pevensie, 6L, Dorset Avenue, Finchley; my childhood address. I then looked back at it only to discover it now read: High Queen Susan, Cair Paravel, Seafront, Eastern Narnia. The woman just grunted again, her manners were ghastly, and pulled me over to a table.

She ripped off the sheet to reveal my little sister. The skin on her face had turned patchy yellow in some places like the jaundice she had as a baby, the rest was charred black. Her eyes sockets lay empty, burst blood vessels with no eyeball to attach with. Bone showed through her sweet face, so young. The skin began to break, drying like old leather and I watched as blood began to pour out. Her white lips opened and she began to scream in agony. I tried to cover my ears, tried to look away but I couldn't I was stuck watching her burn, watching the agonizing end to her life, the pain inflicted on them all; Aunt Alberta, Uncle Harold, my cousin Eustace, my parents, Peter, Edmund and Lucy. I screamed with them, so many voices, so much death, I tried to block it all out, scream louder than them and keep on screaming and screaming until tears streamed from my eyes.

"Mummy, mummy don't cry." Tiny hands grab my arm and shake me gently. I saw darkness, the light from outside outlined the tp corner of the wardrobe , the metal edge on the counter tops shone through the cracked doorway. Home, safety; seven years later.

"Mummy," Lucy cries again, she shuffles around beside me exposing herself to the bitterly cold air.

She may have been only six years old but she was accustom to my tears, she'd known all her life I had nightmares, horrible reminders that I wasn't there . I knew it was too much for a child so young to know the truth, I never knew how much truth to tell. A child shouldn't be allowed to believe the impossible, it will eventually cause more harm than good. That I knew from my experiences as a fourteen year old. However, she would never live up to her namesake if she did not know the stories. I would do all I could to protect her and all I could to make her happy; as long as she learned to move on.

Lucy tumbled over the top of me, her straw blonde hair tangling around her face, one strand lingering on the end of her smile. Lucinda Eddie Paige Pevensie, she was well named , she holds a part of them all. She has Peter's fluffy mop of blonde hair, Edmund's dark chocolate eyes and she has Lucy's beautiful smile. I had no idea what part of my daughter was actually like me, or like her Father. It was almost as though she had been made to be an exact likeness of each of us. The princess who belonged to both kings and both queens.

"It's ok you were just having a bad dream." my little girl insisted, her icy hand stroking my cheek to comfort me.

I had experienced nothing but bad dreams since the train crash. My parents estate was signed first in Peter's name, then in the name of a distant relative. The will my parents wrote had allowed Peter to distribute money to finish Lucy and Edmund's education and then money, best described as an old-fashioned dowry, for Lucy and I. The rest was kept in case of emergency health care- no longer needed because of the National Health Service- or anything else we might need. Because the amounts were unspecified and we barely knew this elderly gentleman he did pay me but he gave me what he considered appropriate. Times have, of course change a lot over the past few decades so he considered a dowry of fifty pounds suitable.

I was forced to take whatever action I could, I did all a girl could do- no office would take me on since my education was better than that of many owners they simply could not cope with girl being as clever as them. Not even a cleaning firm would take me, though I personally think she was just far too picky. I had only one choice, something people cared for more on the outside than on the inside; beauty. I did not choose my husband because he was caring or handsome he was certainly no prince Caspian. I told myself I would learn to love the ex-soldier but I never had to.

Around the time August Hastings, then my fiancé, died I didn't know what I let myself in for. I took a page out of Lucy and Peter's book, I gave up all reason and logic to do another stupid thing. I had never even known he was ill and then I did something so inappropriate and so indecent then he was a cold, dead body with his arm around my naked shoulder. More deaths in my path.

I may have never loved the man but of course I cared for him. He may have been stubborn and set in his ways. He may still have struggled with sexual equality and he may have been eight years older than me but he was soft and chivalrous, the sort of man to offer his coat and open a ladies door. He was the first and only man to treat me wholly as and adult even if his doing so landed me-landed us- in a far worse situation than before. Of all the bad in August he did give me a gift which I discovered the day of his funeral, or, to word it better, what I didn't discover. We had Lucy.

At first I was very lucky, it was nineteen fifty so rationing was still in place, meaning I got the weekly food of every other pregnant woman in the country, one and half that of an average adult- but one and a half ounces of cheese isnt that different from one once. Still the addition of milk and orange juice must have contributed somehow. This was where my luck ended. I was homeless, jobless and expecting an illegitimate baby. It stung so hard and fully destroyed my last faith in the father of our childhood games. If Aslan could see the world I lived in then why wouldn't he save me, why wouldn't he care that I'd slept in the doorway of a shop, that I had shoved off a drunken man trying to have his way with me. For years my disbelief had purely been to make me cope. I had told myself Narnia was a fantasy story, a game we had played but at that point in my story I knew the game was the total truth. Walking around the freezing streets of London all night snow setting on my shoulders and in my hair, I cried. I cried for my childhood and my innocence. I cried for the days when a world of make believe was my truth, for a time I expected a talking lion to come to my aid. Now it was time to give up and grow up.

"Mummy tell me a story, about Narnia," as much as I tried these were still the only suitable stories I could find for my little girl. She flopped off of me and almost right off the edge of our bed,

"Lucy!" I grabbed the tiny child and pulled her back up by her pyjama collar, she giggled, flashing her aunt's bright smile around the dark room. I could feel the warmth glowing from her, it lit the fire inside me which warmed away my fears and stupid nightmares. She could light anything, bring warmth to the heart of a dead man.

"Please Mummy, tell me a story." I could never deny her anything, I had denied her enough when we almost starved during her toddlerhood.

"There was once a magical land very far yet very close to England called Narnia, which was ruled by-"

"Two kings and two queens; High King Peter, the magnificent, High Queen Susan that's you Mummy- the gentle, King Edmund the Just and Queen Lucy the valiant,"

"I don't need to tell you anything Lucy, you already know it all,"

"And I know the prophecy too, When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone sit at Cair Paravel in throne the evil time will be over and done"

The words always brought a strange saddness, a longing for something that wasn't real, had never been real. It didn't stop me thinking however, I didn't stop me from half wishing I really was the high queen of a magical, mysterious land far away from here. I loved Lucy, of course I did, she was my entire world but maybe if that was my life things would have been better, safe and secure. To be certain of three meals a day, to know nobody would come through our door at night, to give Lucy the schooling I had at St Finnbar's and all the latest toys; and her own bed.

There was no proof, that world was all in our heads when we were kids, I'd thought about it and nothing ever changed for us when we got back. The clothes we wore, our gifts from Father Christmas, the months and years that passed on the inside of a wardrobe for us to go back to the very same moment. We fought a war while waiting for a train back to school. I had killed people, not just hurt them but actually shot them with red plumed arrows and an ivory tipped recurve bow. I was someone to be reckoned with and yet I sat alone at school before I had my sister for company. There was no way the stories could be true at all. My feelings had to be sadness for only one thing, nostalgia for my childhood, for being so naïve, I was no Joan of Arc.

I did tell Lucy her stories, half a dozen before London began to wake up and lights shone through the thin dusty curtains hanging limp over one of the two windows in our home. The cold three roomed house, a bedroom, a bathroom and a room to house everything else. The old bungalow was far below the place I lived in as a child. I'd never knew what poverty was. I didn't know what poverty was until I found the charity to save me in the form of a proper home.

I didn't have anywhere to go, not anywhere proper after August died. I spent every night in whichever hostel or shelter I could get into, spent the day searching for any type of work. My problem hand changed from intelligence to Lucy. I knew the shame I was to society, an unmarried young mother. I was a total disgrace and nobody would take me on, nobody cared that I just needed help. I needed my Mum, someone to care for me and keep me safe. Though help came it did come in a very unexpected way, to show there was still some good people, people who didn't judge. People who were just.

An old gentleman stood in his doorway in January 1951, I remember it very well as it was seven days before Lucy was born. He was leaning heavy on the battered wooden door frame as I walked past. The old man wore a long white beard and a bad spluttering cough but the moment he caught sight of me his eyes widened and he whistled to me. I looked around, searching for the person he was really trying to call. Nobody else was near me. I felt automatic pity for the old man, he clearly thought I was someone else, perhaps he was mad, many people who lived alone turned mad.

Before I could get to him and explain that I wasnt whoever he thought I was, he began to shake and grip the frame with white fingers. His eyes, dark for the most part, began to turn darker and then his fingers gave out and he slid on the ice. I ran as best I could to catch him, just missing by an inch to where his head smacked down. He shook for another moment or so, his skin snowy white but sweaty. I didn't know what was happening to him but I knew it was bad- he was very sick.

I managed to half drag him inside the doorway he'd stood at. He kept shaking his head, he didn't want my help but he was going to get it. I led him to a very lumpy, shabby sofa so old I could imagine things lived below he fabric. He flopped down hard onto the patterned grey sofa, a cloud of soot almost choking his damaged lungs. He breathed barley and clutched at his left shoulder. His eyes remained wide in wonder as if he'd just met the Queen.

"Where is the nearest telephone?"

The old gentleman panted and coughed, he pointed towards the door then shook his lead in frustration before gathering the energy to try again.

"Mrs, mi, Mrs Joha, Johanna," he was wheezing like a copper kettle. His fingers, like gnarled tree roots gripped and released the fabric on his left side. He was in serious pain. I believed it would be strong enough to bring him to an uncomfortable end. I didn't bother waiting for further instructions. I ran along the street once, twice, till finding the home I felt was most fitting to own a telephone. I wa in luck and Mrs Johanna phoned for an ambulance, sending me back to the old man. He was in the same state as when I'd left. I found a blue fleece blanket in a battered bedroom cupboard and tucked it round him. I saw him watch me, looking away each time he was caught. He had seen my carefully hidden secret, Lucy was becoming easily seen by any outsider. After a while, when I'd given up collecting an overcoat , slippers, his walking stick and anything else the old man could need I settled on my knees beside him.

He did several goldfish impressions, mouth open shut, open shut, before he eventually began to speak. His breathing was a little more settled and much easier than before but that didn't make the words he croaked any easier to say.

"Susan, forgive me would I be right in saying. May I suggest you may be." Everytime he tried to say the scary word or phrase he could not, the gentleman refused for his good Samaritan to be condemned as an unmarried parent. It also played on my mind that I didn't think I had given him my name but I must have, I'd never met him before and I wasn't exactly the most well recognised person in London. Suddenly he grabbed my hand in both of his, overbalancing me a little. He didn't seem to notice me pushing myself back again so my swollen stomach could rest on my knees.

"I won't be coming back to this house, and I know that you have nowhere to stay. Stay here, please, don't let that blessed child be born to concrete and tar,"

"Oh sir, don't speak in such an awful way, the ambulance is coming you'll go to hospital and get better." He wouldn't listen to me, he begged and bargained and haggled with me, wasting his limited breath, even when the ambulance did arrive he had one last try.

"For the sake of the child, as a dying man's wish, stay here. And may God bless you, your majesty."

To this day the lumpy sofa in our everything-else room reminds me of him and his last words. All I knew for certain was that he had called me royalty, I wasn't likely to have been mistaken for-then princess- Elizabeth, and he had called me Susan, he did know me. My mind was troubled like that for many days, was he just mad or was it really possible that Narnia was real.

That idea was sharply torn out of my head when I screamed alone at seven thirty AM on the 16th of January. I should have had my Mother by my side as I went through the terrible pain of childbirth. She should have been beside me, encouraging me, helping me and grinning with pride when she handed me my beautiful baby. I wondered if Lucy would have been there, she'd seen more blood on dead and dying soldiers than she would have on her niece but the pain was so great it would have put her off children for a while. I imagined returning her to the ruins of Cair Paravel, the huge celebration over the first Narnian Princess, the gifts for the animals, the fawns, nymphs and dryads. The astronomy readings from the centaurs of her prosperous future.

As it was there was only me, crying and screaming in a candle-lit kitchen. The floor was freezing cold, the only thing keeping me awake. It would be a ridiculous understatement to say it hurt, I didn't know the meaning of pain until Lucy was born. When she was, howvever, I felt nothing at all, every bit of pain was healed, the cold was neutralized and my fatigue energised. The pink thing, in skin that looked too big for her. The little pink thing with sea-blue, deep eyes. The tiny little pink thing was with ivory coloured fluffy hair. Just us in the darkness, just me and my daughter. She didn' cry, not so much as one complaint, she just lay as sweet and quiet as a lamb, like the baby Jesus in female form.

Over time that changed very little, she was tough, brave and innocent; she was Lucy. She put up with our unorthodox lifestyle , she wore clothes I made from all I could get, often I downsized adults clothes. She didn't complain when she wasn't invited to birthday parties of other children. She wasn't scared when I had to leave her home alone til nine or ten O'Clock at night if I had to work late at the hotel. She lived for my days off. She was happy to just have my company. I gave her what I could even though I knew I could never give her enough. I couldn't give her a brand new Silver Cross dolls pram- she had never even had a pram as a baby. I could never make people like Lucy even though she was a lovely girl because it was me they hated, me that had parents of other little girls running for cover.

The abuse we suffered from society was what I had in mind the moment we heard a loud bang on the front door that morning. Lucy froze half way through buttoning her school blouse, her dark eyes fixed on mine, the doe in the headlights. I put down the milk bottle, holding a finger to my lips when I spotted Lucy's trembling lip. My heartbeat became the loudest noise in the room. The sound wasn't a stone or a brick, whatever had been thrown had stayed stuck in the door, a knife perhaps. Lucy pulled her feet from the wood on the floor and she ran to me, her feet banging on the boards so loud. She didn't stop running till her face was thrust into my stomach, her arms tight as a bow string round my waist. I was frozen with fear, stuck to the spot, this was our home. Were we going to be killed? An innocent five-year-old girl killed for being born?

I couldn't let them hurt Lucy.

"Stay here," I said firmly, prizing my daughter away from me. She looked so scared the same as her aunt when I'd faced a group of soldiers alone in order to buy her time. The look that showed she loved me, the love surrounded by doubt, a tiny bit of doubt, a tiny bit of doubt that had to be set right.

"Lucy, promise me, stay here." Stubborness- my trait-built up silence, a wall only there for a second before she cracked it with a nod and banished it with a hug.

I didn't let cling on for long before I gave her a shy smile and left, hiding the fire poker behind my back.

I was prepared for almost anyone at the door, almost any scene before me. An entire mob of townspeople, an old lady with a meat cleaver, even a walking garden gnome but there was no sign of people, no sound of them either. No sharp object had came through the door and there was no crack to suggest it had come half way through. I opened the door to feel an electric surge of relief. There was no one outside, not a soul up or down the street, either direction. It had been a cat knocking over a bin . I turned to go back in, something pricked the corner of my eye. There was something in the door. I pushed it closed and began to feel scared , very scared.

In the door was an arrow, a short shaft to fit a recurve bow, neat red fletching and gold in colour. The head was in the shape of a lions head. This wasn't just an arrow in my door . I knew the shape, colour, fletching straight away. This arrow was part of a twelve part quiver and there was one more specific; it was mine.


	2. Chapter 2

I pulled hard on the arrow shaft, wiggling it bac and forth till the ancient image if the lion was glaring at me, so familiar and yet still part of a distant image that could be fake, like remembering a childhood thought or a part of the beach holiday the year my sister Lucy was born. The pictures were still vivid in my mind but I couldn't be certain they were accurate. I could be sure this was my arrow as much as I was sure that I wore red sandals on that holiday.

I felt the weight of the wood in my hand, ran the trio of red feathers through my fingers, so familiar, so obvious, so sure. I could feel the feather brushing my fingers as they held the bow string taught. There was so much laid clearly in my head, memories flooding through like the great waterfall of ice on the Great River.

Lucy; I couldn't tell Lucy. However it had came about that an image from my childhood had been fired into our day she would take it as truth. Lucy could not think that it was all true and if she saw the arrow my alterego as the High Queen would be reality for her. I didn't want to think about the damage I would do to her. At twelve years old it had ruined me, I was never the person I wanted to be. I was just Susan P, one of the two Susan's in my class, I sat alone at school dreaming about being the other me. I wanted to be loved, the person who wore long dresses and a gold crown of daffodils and mountain ash. The person who had others going to war for her. I just wanted Lucy to be happy as Lucy Pevensie the way I couldn't be.

I hid the arrow, planted it in my kitchen cupboard, proper up in a metal bucket. I stuck to my earlier thoughts, told Lucy it was only a cat knocking over a bin and so she went happily on with her day. I couldn't, I saw sprouts of my kingdom everywhere I looked.

The hotel I know worked in was named the Lionhead, I hadn't noticed the irony till then, there were gold statues by the door, gold lion heads on the doorhandles. I swore I'd seen the shadow of a lion in one of the mirrors but nothing could have cast it. I kept hearing the words of Professor Kirke- we were not to look for Narnia, it would find us when we didn't expect it to. I was too old, was I being warned that Lucy was about to be stolen from me? It had been so long though, was it possible that us Pevensies were still remembered? If Lucy said my name would it bring her safety, or label her as mad?

I couldn't do it, my mind was too distracted. I knocked over the tin bucket when I was washing the floor, sending water flowing everywhere, a reminder of the waves on the Eastern sea. I watched the waves wash out across the floor, memories swooshed with them. The warmth of the sun on my skin, feeling sand squeeze and squelch between my toes as I kicked off my shoes and chased my sister across the bay.

My hand slapped the wall, my mind yelling at me to shut up as well as rialling me to continue, 'Shut Up!' I kept saying but the rest was too strong the world of make-believe was forcing my mind. I began to doubt it a little more every second.

"Susan? What's wrong , you've been odd all day."

Anna, one of the few true friends I had in the world, was standing at the end of the corridor. She was a sweet girl, barely more than a child but she knew how it felt not to be accepted by society. Anna had decided she wanted to be an actress, on stage or screen, but it was not a suitable, respectabe career path for a young girl to take. Anna was determined and she was paying her way to America. She was the only person in my life to know I had Lucy.

I shook my head, silently dismissing her question but the young lady would not let go, the ferret hangng on one's finger came to mind. Eventually I gave in and told her an edited, abridged version of what was on my mind.

"I'm worried for Lucy. This morning there was a hole left in my front door. It's messing with my thoughts, I can't lose my only family."

Anna smiled softly, patting my shoulder with empathy. She was the same height as me and her blue eyes burned into mine. Her eyes were the same as mine had been once upon a time, bright, adventurous but gentle. She reminded me so much of the person I was supposed to be, the girl I spent my teen years as; Queen Susan the Gentle.

"You finnish here, go and get Lucy from school and you can stay with me, nobody can get near either of you." I, as a general, accepted no charity at all but Anna's offer was too tempting. If someone was after us they would never find us in Anna's home, miles from our little house. I'd agreed before I'd even thought it all the way through- a real rarety in my world. I could have put it down to fear or maternal instinct but to be completely honest it was rash thinking that had me agree

I was ransacking my own home by quarter past two, desperate to be ready before Lucy came home, desperate to be safe before darkness. Anna had offered her help but I refused, she hadn't met the instigator. The red fletched arrow was the last thing I came across, all our clothes, Lucy's doll and a few extra odds and ends were safely packed into carrier bags just the arrow remained. The arrow drew me back to it, the red feathers kept growing back into my mind each time I plucked them out. The arrowhead was in the metal pale under the sink, the nock with it's strong crimson fletching was staring at me.

I wanted to take it with me, I didn't understand why but it felt safer knowing where it was. I felt safer even though I didn't have anything to fire t with. It was like the same trust one has in a good horse or a dog, I could rely on my single arrow as much as on the whole quiver. The nock continued to stare me down, the little gold tip begging me fore help of some kind. I heard the tap of feet on the uneven garden path and the groan of the gate closing behind my daughter. That sorted it, I grabbed the arrow and shoved it into the nearest bag. The tip got caught and went straight through the thatch of the bag. I panicked, pulling it back out, wriggling the shaft back and forth till Aslan's head came free. It came out so suddenly that the nock went straight into the palm of my hand breaking the skin and seeping blood across my skin. I shoved the arrow up my sleeve and crossed to the sink just as Lucy opened the door.

"Mummy!" Lucy yelled rushing across as soon and she saw the blood. She ducked under my arm and watched red water run down the plughole.

"Oh Mummy, what did you do?" I quickly closed my hand into a fist, biting my lip against the pain. The wound was deep, I could tell without having seen it, I could feel my blood pulsing in the surrounding area the pain came in waves up my wrist. I tried to turn away from Lucy, I didn't want her to see more tears.

"Lucy go and get the orange box out the bathroom," I instructed and she went straight away.

Slowly I unravled my fingers, like they were pressing on piano keys, not sure I wanted to see the hole in my hand. As I'd expected it was a very deep wound, the skin was ragged and the arrow had sabbed deep into the tissue below. It felt worse than it looked, it felt like a punishment. A punishment for what I didn't know but I felt like I was paying.

"Mummy," Lucy called again, trudging back through. She carried the first aid kit as carefully as a lt christmas pudding. I was aware time ticked past, the lighting outside was almost gone, the sky was a dark grey.

She pushed the box onto the worktop and opened the latch. Her little pink hands went to her neck to pull of her scarf from just under her ice-bitten cheeks.

"No, we're just going out. We're going on a little adventure." Lucy's smile grew when I said the word adventure- ever her Aunt's child. She skipped around the kitchen babbling on as I wrapped my hand up in white bandages. I turned to grab the bags and felt the arrow slip from my sleeve. I moved to grab it but it charged onto the floor before I could stop it. I heard the silence from Lucy, the claer and oud silence that said she'd seen the arrow.

I slowly turned my hand up towards her, not sure what to see on her cherubic face. Between her pigtails was a look of disbelieving joy as if I'd just given her the best present in the world. She rushed forward, picking up the arrow as if it was a newborn baby, all slippery from the bathtub. She held it with both hands, stroking it with her gaze before she looked at me, her eyes and ears smiling with total wonder. What had I done? I never wanted her to see because I knew that she, like any other six-year-old, would take this as bonafide truth of Narnia's existance.

Her wide chestnut eyes blinked once and she said, straight faced,

"I'm a princess."

"Lucy, listen very carefully," I began to whisper, croutching to her level, "This is a very special big secret and you mustn't tell anyone, not your teacher, not Anna when we go to her house, not even Primrose, ok?"

She gave me the same expression that she did when she hid from me at the market the week before. I knew she was listening to me but I laughed at myself for caring, what would it matter if she called hersef Lucy II of Narnia? It was just a story- something she would learn just as I had learned, I would just make sure she learned it sooner.

I took the arrow back off Lucy, explaining it was dangerous for a little girl to carry a weapon and bustled her out the door. The street lights were on when I locked the door. Lucy clutched her doll Primrose in one hand and held mine tight with the other, she shared my fear of the dark . I never used to be scared, I used to be brave, I used to pretend I was brave and that imagination had really made me braver but I grew up, thus becoming scared once more. Children were never so scared of things because children believed.

Anna was waiting for us in her little house on St. Peter's road, an area very similar to where Lucy had spent her whole life. A part of London so different from the centre it was hard to believe it was part of the same city, or even the same country.

"Hello, you must be Lucy, I'm a friend of your Mother's," Anna offered her hand as we stepped into her wasteland style kitchen. Lucy smiled a little in welcome and accepted her hand but she better accepted the offer of cocoa and a shortbread biscuit. Both Lucy and I shared the feeling that we didn't belong at first but by the end of the evening the little house felt like home. Our game of dominoes reminded me of my blood family, I remembered having to help Lucy count the dots the first time we played with her and then she had won five of the six rounds.

That stayed with me as I fell asleep beside me daughter in Anna's spare bedroom, I dreampt of happier times, when playing games was part of life. I was in the fifth drawing room- or common room, I forget- at Cair Paravel, the painting of the centaur's family on the wall as part of a great tapestry gave this away. I could feel the cool stone on my feet and the sun on the glass window. I sat on a purple velvet cushion around some type of game board. Lucy sat across from me, Edmund to my right and Peter to my left.

We played a strange form of chess, all of us had a full set of pieces, my set were made of red marble even though the other three had gold. After a while I stood up, flicking over the queen piece and said 'I'm too old to play silly games!' Aslan's face suddenly appeared through the board. His eyes were full of anger and he roared right at me, his volume enough to burst my ear drums. I blinked and everyone was gone. I stood totally alone on a train platform in time to hear the screams of my daughter.

I rushed back to the present, feeling like I truly was being pushed, squeezed from the dream like toothpaste from the tube and I was back in Anna's spare room.

The dream wasnt a one off, it was a serial, a continuos flow of the same dream, the same pictures, same people, same sounds and the same fear. Every night from eary January up to the end of March the fear and the dream kept going, the pattern identical each and every time. Then, on the last day of March something changed and the dream was diferent, a tiny difference but one big enough to give me a real shock.

This time I knocked the Queen over, said my lines and prepared for Aslan's roar, though this time it didn't come. His hand appeared and his mouth opened wide, his nose wrinkled up in a snarl for the cry of a baby to break out instead. The cry was so tiny that it belonged to a newborn only minutes old and wide-eyed with wonder. The cry that Lucy had missed when she was born. My thoughts were read by the dreammaker for suddenly Aslan metamorphed into my Lucy. I saw her eyes were the very same brown as his were, her golden hair was just like the colour of his mane. They had a real look of each other.

As Lucy became the lion the newborn's cry changed into the roar of a lion. My daughter and the great king intertwined and morphed together both in protest, both in hatred, both disappointed with me.

I awoke from the dream with true, fat tears rolling from my cheeks, even a drip of water ran from my face. I found my subcoincious taking over, the childish part of my brain took control and began to beg, beg for the forgivness of the true king of Narnia. I came to my sense when I realised I didnt even know why I needed forgiven but those eyes, the brown eyes, they bore into my soul, they demanded action of some sort and all I could hope for was forgivness as my escape.

Lucy was still snuffling in her sleep, her little feet kicking about in the bed at Anna's house. I knew Anna had already left for work, she was serving breakfast that day, so I snuk out of the bedroom and curled up on the couch in my nightclothes. Still tears fell, I cried even though things were better than they had ever been. I knew deep down that I wasn't crying over the dream, something else gave me that horrible black heavy emotion that refused to let you move from your chair. I felt terrible, worse than I had on the day August died. Even though I wasn't totally sure where this feeling of depression had sprouted from I hadn't felt it since my family had passed away, but I knew Lucy would lift away the invisable rocks that held me down.

This was going to be a good day, I had the saturday off and of course there was no school. For months I had promised Lucy I'd take her out on a boat trip, she had been inspired by my voyage to the Lone Islands. I'd had to remind her our trip would not be on a ship as fine as the Splendor Hyaline but it didn't phase her at all. Today she would travel by sea for the first time, the only saltwater she'd seen before was the kind for treating an ulcer in her mouth.

Our trip showed one of the many benefits of staying with Anna for we took turn about in buying in the week's food therefore whoever wasn't buying food kept that weeks wages for themselves. If it hadn't been for Anna's generosity Lucy may have been into her teenage years before we could afford her trip to the seaside let alone the trip on a boat.

"Mum, Mummy, look at me!" Lucy called as she walked along the sea wall at Newquay. The trip to Cornwall had been a long one, the longest I had ever done by train- it made me realise how lucky I was to have travled to America by sea.

Lucy had never been on a train before, giving she had never left London, and she enjoyed every second of the adventures we had just traveling over open countryside. She had asked, perched at the window like a puppy in a pet shop, if the open fields and bumpy hills were what Narnia was like. She imagined galloping over the cattle-trodden grass on a black mare like my Peroneffy. She wore a silver crown and a long purple cloak. She carried a bow and said she was 'almost as good as you are.'

Arriving at the seaside with the smell of salt in the air and the wheezing cries of seagulls, Lucy was again overwhelmed, I'd watched her run along the sea wall her arms spread wide as she teetered back and fourth in her wellie boots. Little did she know I held the ribbon on her dress- just to be sure she didn't slip.

She had stopped after a while, pausing when she spotted other children on the beach below. She stood perfectly still and watched the families playing. A black dog charged out of the water and shook itself, soaking the boy and girl who owned it. We spotted a large family too, five children, the mother struggling to push a sturdy pram across the dry, white sand. It brought back memories of our family holiday when I was little and the fun we'd had that day.

I lifted Lucy off the wall and walked us down the nearest flight of stairs onto the white sand. In seconds our socks, shoes and suitcases were abandoned for that feeling of squelchy sand between our toes. We squeezed our feet in the dry sand, the contents of a giant sugar jar. Lucy squealed in delight, she'd never known a sensation so strange.

"It moves," she gasped, dancing around to feel the other textures, "it feels alive and it's mushy and it's crunchy all in the same go," she laughed, I laughed too. I laughed in genuine happiness, that thought had me take Lucy's hand and run across the beach, the wind rose and flew around us dancing with and whispering to our hair as it lagged behind us. Lucy's laughter, the most beautiful noise in my world, was all I cared to hear.I blocked out every other noise till all there was on the beach was us.

Lucy and I splashed in the sea, wrote our names in the sand. We ran, we skipped, we jumped; we laughed. Our socks, shoes and suitcases forgotten along with our arrival time for the guesthouse, along with reason and common sense till the seagulls turned for home.

The sky had turned a beautiful lilac when we remembered, the people on the beach had packed up their deckchairs and children and gone home. We were very late for our arrival time at the guesthouse by the time I'd piled Lucy onto my back, carrying her sandy socks and shoes, and headed to our home for the next few days.

Lucy laughed in delight when we arrived at our room in the guesthouse, she'd danced across the room as she smiled with glee. Her simple life was full, she was blissfully happy after a few hours on a beach and a shared fish supper. She evntually collapsed onto the little campbed that was hers for the night, not sure what to do next to expell her excess energy. I loved to watch her like that, I was glad I'd given her something so good, something that made her happy. I missed the feeling of those childhoos memoires when everything had been perfect.

"Mummy?" Lucy asked, she now lay spread out like she planned to make a snow angel on the pristine white sheets. She lifted her head slightly, releasing some of the blonde mane trapped underneath. Her brown eyes were curious, fixed on me like a hawk to it's prey but I could still see doubt. The expression that always told me she was about to say something that I wouldn't really like.

"What is it Lucy?" I replied, trying not to make it obvious I knew what was coming. It turned out I didn't.

"Do you think I will ever get to go to Narnia?" came her tiny, sheepish voice. My throat closed up, I had never wanted to address this question, not ever. I had started to believe, the arron and the dreams mad it hard not to but it was like believeing in a monster in the wardrobe or a ghost in the hall- not a thing you wanted to think about or believe in, a thing you are too scarred to admit. I couldn't lose Lucy to the happiness and magic of that world. A trip to the seaside, even a million pound lifestyle would never make you happy after Narnia.

"Mummy!" she pestered sitting up. Something snapped and like the craking of Jadis' wand sparks of anger and despair flew everywhere, bouncing off anything in its reach.

"Just drop it Lucy!" a spark of dark magic spat at my daughter, leaving us both totally stunned.

Lucy's wide eyes rew until her irises became chocolate islands in a milky white ocean. Her eyes began to spill trickles of water on her face, so strange it looked as though she was melting away. My beautiful painting running from the canvas, I ran too, I left the room, locking myself in the comunal bathroom and letting the paint slide from my own canvas. I sat on the cold floor crying with utter abandonment. I had never made Lucy cry before- not in the way that her face had spelt out fear. I knew why I'd shouted, I knew why I cried because my thoughts of fear for Lucy echoed in my own mind too. A trip to the seaside, even a million pound lifestyle would never make me happy after Narnia


	3. Chapter 3

(A/N) Ok thank you for the people Jehovah's have read and reviewed it is much appreciated, sorry I haven't got manned because I had meant to thank you all personally! And so there is more to the story than was thought by one reviewer (again sorry I haven't put on names!) and also what you said about the dream, there is another point made in the dream which will become more obvious as the story continues, how Susan interpreted it is not necessarily right. I also am trying to get into the habbit of updating once a week once more the chapters I've put up are ones I already had completed on my other story-writing web page. I will try my best to keep this going but since I haven't been struck with ideas for more interesting back plots and such I might not be able to keep it up at the beginning. Thank you again!

Children have beautiful minds and Lucy forgave me the next morning at breakfast time. She had been truly upset, only half accepting my kiss goodnight the previous evening. I was torn by her regection, even if I knew she was just a child and doing nothing wrong after the way I had spoken to her, but I needed Lucy's love so much. She was the only person I had left to love.

Lucy had found the idea of dressing fully in her stockings and shoes very strange when we had came down to the small dining room. She normally had her breakfast as a half-dressed ragamuffin with no shoes to her name and cardigan buttons all in the wrong buttonholes. This morning she appeared smart and was astounded to see all the other people were too.

The dining room was a quiant little place with around six little rounded tables covered in red check tableclothes. Some tables had four chairs but the majority had two of these chairs one expects to find in a farmhouse, with spokes on the backrest like the spokes on a huge ship's wheel. It was to one of these smaller tables that a girl with cherry red cheeks that matched her bright hair colour led Lucy and I to. The girl was maybe around fifteen years old, she wore a red check apron- to match herself to the tableclothes- and a very tired smile. She told us her name was Harriet before taking our orders and leaving us with a nod and another very drab smile. The dinning room was quiet other than the typical moring sounds: the squeek of knives and forks on plates, the crackle of newspaper pages turning, a teaspoon clinking against the inside of it's teacup, and the general background buzz of conversation.

This meant the noise of another family coming along the corridor really drew my attention, with each step they got louder till the glass door into the room was banged open, almost breaking the window panes.

A grey haired man in a green tweed suit. He had a grey catterpillar lying under his nose which seemed to be his most prominent feature. He wore cap to match his suit and had a sharp-cut face to go with his sharp-cut collar. He held a woman on his arm, a woman with a duplicate expression. Two children followed them in, a boy around Lucy's age and a girl a little younger. The boy, wearing his Father's suit in miniature, was wailing as his Mum pulled him along . He dragged his feet in their black shoes and threw his head back in defiance, showing his scarlet face to the ceiling. The little girl trotted along behind, totally forgotten. She stopped for a second to touch th flowers in a glass vase by the door.

"Phillipa!" The mother screamed in pure rage, pulling the tiny child by the ear away from the vase.

I watched her in disgust, that awfull, awfull women, how could she treat her daughter in such a horrible way. The awfull woman-she certinly did not deserve to be called a lady-contined to drag her daughter round to their table. She pushed her daughter into her seat and took her own place at the table. Lucy looked at me her wide eyes solomn, I put a finger to my lips, hinting she mustn't speak if they could hear us but we both sat and listened to the remainder of their conversations.

It became more and more aparent that the chosen one, named Rupert, was more to his parents than Phillipa was. There was talk about Rupert's school report, Rupert's goal scoring at a recent football match and not one mention of Phillipa. Instead the little tot with red hair and freckled cheeks sat quietly, swinging her little feet, knocking white stockings further down her thin calves. I could not imagine treating a child this way.

From eht very beginning Lucy was my world- after the funeral of my fiance when my suspicions were confirmed I had been terrified. I had known I could not support the child that grew inside me. I couldn't live that way. I knew I was in a lot of danger since August's family- all devout Catholics - were disgusted by me, saying I lured August to me. I had no home, no money other than a few bits of silver and copper.

My worries did not last for long, they soon became determination. I was determined to safeguard that little lump in my stomach wohen I first noticed it. I loved that little being straight off, grinning with delight when she got bigger and I got the magical sensation of her kicking those tiny toes or wriggling around. I relished in being able to almost touch her, only a small amount of skin and blood lay between us, me and My daughter.

She never made me suffer, not once did I feel queasy or aches or fatigue- not anymore than I had done before- but still her gestation period affected my life beyong my imagination. For the first time since the death of my family I had a reason for love, I had someone who almost demanded I loved her, I watched my hands and wrists thin out, knowing it meant she was a healthy weight and size. She gave me something else as well, she gave me hope for the future, hope that not all was against me. My stupid thoughts of invincablity were alos a risk on her life. I acted too much on the generosity of fate and my unborn daughter, seeing her across the table I had no idea what I would have done had the worst came to the worst. I had been far too cocky.

I should have known better than to take the back routes on a dark Friday night but I was so cold and hungry and knew I wouldn't have to walk as fast if I went through the back alleys in order to reach the refuge centre, where I would spend the night, before they ran out of room and it was back to a sheltered bus station, garage or doorway.

I knew once upon a time I could handle myself, once upon a time I could probably have fought back and won, scaring off the chauvanist enemy just through humiliatio. I used to be strong- especially in my right arm, I could easily take the 45lb draw weight of a bow. I used to be quick on my feet, teasing, dancing around and away from my enemy but I wasn't as quick or as strong as I had once been, I risked both our lives.

The snow was beginning to fall as I passed the entrance to a local pub, my hands had already turned a wonderous shade of purple, my toes only felt when I pressed them to the ground in an awkward fashion due to the weight I was still not quite used to carrying around.

I came face to face with a group of young men a little down from the the door to the pub. They stood around the door jeering and laughing. Cigarrettes hung from their mouths making my own go dry with want, it had been months since I'd last tasted one. Whe I realised my situation I had savoured the last packet, rationed them- maybe they were a little adictive, in the same way chocolate was.

Despite the temptation of spending a little time with the boys and earning myself a cigarette I felt intimdated by these four. There was something about them had me long for my Dad, or Peter, to keep me safe. I wanted my bow, even though in the reality of those childhood games I would never have been able to shoot straight- not even if our lives depended on it.

"Oi!" I heard the call on my back once I'd passsed the boys. I felt my skin prickle up like the claws on a cat and I tried to keep walking, one unbalanced step at a time. The icy snow blew in my face and I tried to hurry away from them, as fast as I could without trying to run away from a fear I felt.

It wasn't enough.

A cold, steel hand griped my arm and I was wrenched back into the chest of a boy much taller and stronger than I was. His hair was cut short and his arms strong, all suggesting he was in the military someplace. His smile of slanted teeth in a yellowed colour reminded me of a great and ugly shack. His breath stunk of stale alcohol, I had to twist my head to escape the scent as his bruised, blistered hands curled around my hips, burning my skin from the horror of what he was doing. He was so inebriated he couldn't even tell my stomach pressed hard into him, or that I couldn't get any closer to him even if I wanted to.

"Come on love, you's a pretty gal," he spluttered, shoving his hips towards me. For the first time since I'd known I was expecting I felt terribly sick. I had to swallow the bile that rose in my throat. I knew what he took me for and what he wanted from me, not as naive as I had once been. I was no harlot and I was not going to be taken for one. In my head I screamed for help, 'Peter, Edmund, Trumpkin, Glenstorm. Caspian. Daddy!...Aslan,' all the people who had saved my life, all the people who were dead or had forgotten I excisted.

His dry, ragged lips grappled with mine, he forced himself closer, his thick, fat, strong tongue running over my skin. That was when my fear gave out and I shoved him, all the adreniline in my panic being pushed out my fingertips. He teetered backwards a fews steps, arms windmilling, plowing the night's air. His eyes all but turned red with his rage, I tried to run again,too slowly. I was ambushed.

They did not try to have their way with me, one of them noticing Lucy and seeing I was without the virtue they craved so they took their anger out on me. I felt the first slap, so hard it was the numb feeling of a knock on the head but soon it was stinging and I felt moisture-either tears or blood-pouring down my face, my arm. I didn't feel most of their attacks, the pain became numb. I sank further and further into the ground, into the wall, into myself.

Eventually they walked away. I was so scared of that place but every bone in my body had fused solid to the ground, it hurt everywhere, blood still dripping from my face, I could taste the rusty, metallic flavour in my throat. I eventually pushed myself up off the ground, my muscles shaking witht the effort I needed in order to get there.I had just managed to crawl up the wall onto shaky feet when the worst thing struck.

I felt a strong stabbing, pulsing pain in my stomach. I didn't know much about what it was to have a baby- my Mother had never went beyond the exposition in the 'little chat' she gave me when I was ten- but I knew that pain, that type of pain well enough. The extreemes of the agony I was in was far beyond my regular experience, I knew it meant my baby was feeling even worse, the punches, slaps, kicks and jabs I'd recieved were far more than I could feel. That child in there wasn't strong enough to defend its self and now it was slowly dying.

I slid back onto the ground, my whole body shaking in pain and sorrow. I felt the blood seap through my clothes, confirming the agonizing end to a tiny, innocent life. I had lost thirteen, thirteen beautiful, great and kind people. I could not stand any more, my tiny son or daughter, just a small lump under my skin held my heart totally, unconditionally, irrevecobly. "Please!" I begged the dark night sky, tears flowing, cascading like white water down my skin I felt a horrible deep gloom sit in the pit of my stomach and grow through my blood like a sedative, I was incapacitated by the grief, the pain from another loss.

The memories I have of what happened next seemed to get clearer and less realistic as time passes since it happened but the strangest thing DID happen and I will always remember that.

I sat on the cold pavement for hours it seemed, my body freezing cold and damp with my blood. I cried continually the pain in my heart never ending and the paralised feeling in my arms and legs eternal also. I didn't want to move. I wanted to die too.

The change came out of nowhere, a strange twist in the weather sent a bottle top skimming down the street, the wind didn't whistle, but roared through tiny spaces. The gust came twisted and swirled around the leaves like a tree-spirit coming into formation. I looked and down the alleyway, shocked by the strength of the sudden outburst of wind. The bins at the bottom of the backstreet didn't move at all. I'd expected them to be rolling around on the floor.

It got stronger and stronger, the wind rushing through my eardrums the feeling they were being buffeted like a kite in a storm, my hair began to thrash around, tugging on it's roots to get away then it turned on me, whipping my stinging, lasserated face. Leaves began to fly around even though I'd never noticed a single leaf in the alley before. I began to feel odd, tinging all over, the tingling transformed also, the itch of a new wool cardigan but it wasn't on the surface it felt like the itch was running under my skin, through my blood like an injection. The roaring wind was like a hair dryer at close range.

Then suddenly it stopped.

The awfully strong wind ceased totally, not even a whisper remained, my hair laid flat over my shoulders, there wa a total silence unlike any I had heard in London before. There wasn't a single leaf on the ground anywhere, not one. But the most noticable change was the one I noticed last of all.

The pain was gone. I froze for seveeral heartbeats, checking my mind, making sure it was really, fully gone and, much to my surprise, I felt something that was far from painful. A little thud, a strong and defined little thud that hadn't come from my heart as would have been expected. The thud I felt from far lower than my heart. It wasnt a fluttering, passing wriggle II felt the definate tap of tiny feet inside me own body. The baby was alive, she'd survived and yet I'd lost so much blood I had it soaked into the skin right down to my calves. I wasn't even fuzzy-headed from the loss of blood, other than the intense bruising and the cuts I had I felt healthy.

Lucy really was my miracle, she was my everything- I'd go through it all again, all the pain and suffering I'd felt over the years for Lucy. Which is why I couldn't understand the treatment that was given to the young girl Phillipa at the other table.

My mind became distracted, I became aware of what I'd missed six years ago when the ambush had happened and my daughter had almost died. There and then, through a single thought brought on by one four-year-old made me see what I had missed. Air had saved me before, in the form of breath. One of my games asa child, I'd been given bravery from air- from breath.

Could it really all be true?


End file.
